A White House senior official late last Friday flat-out denied recent boasts made by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, given to Turkish TV in a live interview, that had Erdogan instructing President Barack Obama to take “the necessary stance” against a U.S.-based foe of the Turkish political leader and Obama replying “we got the message.”
Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) have been locked in open political warfare with Turkish officials linked to U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, with Gulenists in judiciary institutions ensnaring a number of AKP elites in a series of graft scandals.
Turkish media quoted Erdogan bragging that he had told Obama that the U.S. had to take steps against Gulen and that Obama had “looked at [the demand] positively.”
“I told Obama [during a recent phone conversation] that the person who is responsible for the unrest in Turkey lives in your country, in Pennsylvania. I told him this clearly. I said, ‘I expect what’s necessary [to be done].’ You have to take the necessary stance if someone threatens my country’s security,” Erdoğan said during an interview on private broadcaster ATV late March 6. “[Obama] looked at it positively. ‘We got the message,’ he said,” he added.
A senior White House official however emailed Ilhan Tanir, the Washington correspondent for Turkey’s Vatan outlet, explicitly denying Erdogan’s characterization of the phone call, and emphasizing that Obama instead noted the importance of promoting policies grounded in the rule of law.
“The response attributed to President Obama with regard to Mr. Gulen is not accurate. In that February 19 call, the President noted the importance of sound policies rooted in the rule of law, as well as the importance of mutually respectful relations between our countries. Our commitment to working together with Turkey, particularly on a variety of regional issues of mutual interest, continues.”
Tanir described the incident as a “scandal” and as “sad news” for Erdogan. Reuters reported last Friday that Erdogan is now moving to ban Facebook and YouTube in order to “quell abuse by his political enemies on internet sites.”
[Photo: Tayyip Erdogan News / YouTube]